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Dessert

Gateau of Prunes

A gelatinous cake made from soaked prunes, lemon juice, water, sugar, and optional pistachios, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Gateau of Prunes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fruit

  1. Soak the prunes in water until soft, then remove the pits.

  2. In a pan, combine the prunes, water, lemon juice, gelatine, and cochineal.

  3. Boil the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Stir in the pistachio nuts if using.

Set and serve

  1. Prepare a border mold by rinsing it with cold water, then pour in the mixture.

  2. Let it set until firm.

  3. Turn it out onto a glass dish and top with whipped cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + nutstop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + pistachiotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Prunes
Form the main body of the dish and provide moisture, sweetness and flavour.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable shape once chilled.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet prune flavour.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 to 20 minutes. Prolonged boiling weakens the setting power of gelatine, so keep the boil within the stated time to help the mixture set firm.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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